Balls.

So, I dropped the ball on Friday and forgot to send out the newsletter. I also forgot to go live in the evening in the School of Moxie Facebook Group. I know right? What an idiot. At least that’s what I spent most of Saturday telling myself when I remembered all the shit I’d forgotten (if you know what I mean).

We beat ourselves up all the time when we drop balls. As women we are expected to multi-task, to organise, to manage and to remember. People literally rely on us to do all those things, all the time and because we’ve always done it, we robbed them of the skills to do it themselves. But, despite all the slogan t-shirts calling us superheroes, in reality, we’re human and fallible and we fuck it up occasionally.

What I’ve learned to understand is that balls are going to be dropped and my aim in life isn’t to learn how to not drop balls. My aim in life is to learn which balls it’s ok to drop.

I read about the concept of plastic balls and glass balls (disclaimer: I’m going to use the word ‘balls’ a lot in this article) and it was life changing. Some of our responsibilities and ‘jobs’ are plastic balls, and some are glass balls. We need to learn that it’s ok to drop the plastic balls: they bounce, don’t break and we can pick them up again when we’re ready. But the glass balls? Nope. You can’t drop those. In fact, you should definitely know that it’s ok to drop a multitude of plastic balls if it means you save one glass ball.

So all you have to do is figure out what are plastic balls and what are glass balls and here’s the great news. Most things are plastic balls. Glass balls are things like: your mental health, your kids wellbeing, paying bills…you get the idea. They’re important balls that really matter because dropping them effects your wellbeing, your life, your security, safety and happiness. The other things? Like an email that didn’t go out, or a live that didn’t happen? Sure, that’s annoying but it’s fixable. It’s not life or death.

So, today, take some time to figure out what your glass balls are and what your plastic balls are. Even better than dropping the balls, is knowing when to just put some down. The last year has seen us put down a lot of balls and I think now is a great time to be conscious about what balls you decide to pick back up again?